Save the Kurds from Erdogan’s grip – www.israelhayom.com

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan talks about genocide and denial of homeland rights, he knows exactly what he is talking about. For years, and with increasing intensity in recent months, Turkey, under his leadership, has brutally attacked the Kurdish people, both within its borders and in neighboring Iraq and Syria, with the aim of deny it the right to self-determination and its own state. .

Erdogan did not invent this strategy. Turkey, as heir to the Ottoman Empire, has already experienced one of the most horrific massacres of humanity in the 20th century, recorded in its name, the murder of more than a million Armenians during the First World War. To this day, Turkey refuses to recognize this atrocity. Unfortunately, Israel has also never recognized the Armenian genocide, fearing damage to its relations with Ankara.

In recent decades, the Turks have found a new target: the Kurdish people, whom Ankara pursues with fierce determination, destroying their villages and erasing their heritage and identity, all to prevent them from claiming their right to freedom. self-determination. Turkey is not alone: ​​Kurds are persecuted in Iran, Syria and even Iraq.

The Kurds, numbering between 30 and 40 million people, represent the largest stateless minority in the world. They inhabit a region stretching from Iran in the east, where they make up 10% of the population, to Iraq, where they make up a quarter of the population and have established an autonomous region in the north. In Syria, where Kurds make up about 10% of the population, they have established an autonomous zone along the Turkish border under American protection. Finally, in Türkiye, the Kurds represent a quarter of the population, residing mainly in the south of the country.

However, the world chooses to ignore the Kurds, avoiding supporting their struggle and demands for fear of antagonizing Turkey and other countries with significant Kurdish minorities. Throughout history, Israel has been the only nation to actively aid the Kurds, maintaining ties with Iraqi Kurds over the previous century.

The Kurds saw an opportunity early this century when the Americans overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and granted them autonomy, but not independence, as part of the new Iraqi state. Meanwhile, in Syria, the Kurds took advantage of the bloody civil war to establish an autonomous government in the north under American protection.

Turkey fears that the Kurdish awakening in Syria and Iraq will spill over into its territory, leading to an intensification of its anti-Kurdish campaign and a series of military strikes against autonomous Kurdish governments that have emerged along its border. In these attacks, civilian populations are both the target and the main victims. When ISIS controlled eastern Syria and Iraq, Turks avoided confronting them and did not help U.S. efforts to eliminate the terrorist organization.

Currently, the Kurds benefit from American protection. However, during his first term in the White House, Donald Trump considered withdrawing American forces from the Middle East, thus abandoning the Kurds to their fate or, more precisely, to the hands of Erdogan. The Americans ultimately remained in Syria because of its strategic importance as a transit route between Iran and the Mediterranean coast heading to Hezbollah and Hamas. However, Trump's potential return to the White House has renewed concerns about a possible US withdrawal from the region.

The nomination of Senator Mike Waltz, a staunch supporter of the Kurdish cause, as Trump's national security adviser and the Biden administration's public rebuking of Ankara for considering granting asylum to Hamas leaders suggest that Washington could reconsider Ankara's negative role in our region. However, historically, Americans have given in to Erdogan's whims.

Israel could play a crucial role in supporting the Kurds' struggle for their rights. In the mid-1990s, Israel helped Turkey, although it was then a different Turkey, in its fight against the Kurds on its territory. Perhaps it is time to change direction, raise our voices and exert pressure in international forums and in Washington in favor of the Kurdish cause. This serves not only Kurdish interests but also those of Israel.